Yesterday, my good friend Carl S. called to pass on an observation. He said, “Abraham didn’t free the slaves, Moses didn’t free the slaves, Jesus didn’t free the slaves, St. Paul didn’t free the slaves, Abe Lincoln freed the slaves. Think about it.”

I did think about it, and found a very important message in this observation. If you think about it, you too will see that the Bible presents the morality of primitive men, not the morality of the best of men. Isn’t that odd for a book which is claimed to be the word of god, or at least inspired by god? Just what does that say about those men who set those words to parchment?

We could easily fill a book with examples of Biblical passages which reflect the morality of primitive men, but let me just provide a few. When Adam and Eve disobey god, he doesn’t just curse them, he curses the whole human race. This is even worse than when he threatens to punish the ancestors of men to the third and fourth generation. This, of course, is a Mafia technique; if you want to really scare someone, don’t just threaten him, threaten to harm his family.

Similar examples are the story of two men who displeased god and were buried alive, along with their wives and children (Numbers 16:27-33), and another story of men who plotted against Daniel and were thrown into the lions’ den along with their wives and children (Daniel 6:24). Again, if you want to really, really scare someone . . .

Now note that modern legal systems put all blame and punishment on criminals and ignores their families who had nothing to do with the crime.

Of course, according to the Bible, morality is whatever god says it is, but, if you think killing whole tribes but keeping alive the little virgins to rape at your leisure is moral, as Moses commands in Numbers 31, then I say there is something very seriously wrong with you. In fact, I guess you could say I’m betting my life on it, my “everlasting life” that is.

Other shining examples of Biblical morality include the commands to kill all those horrible homosexuals, blasphemers, disobedient sons, non-virginal brides, and people who work on the Sabbath. Let’s see now, did we miss anyone? How primitively stupid! But was Jesus on board with all this disgusting stuff? Well, as you may recall, Jesus did say that he came to fulfill the law (Old Testament law), not destroy it (Matt. 5:17).

Whenever I see a poster that says “John 3:16,” I wish I had one which says “Hosea 13:16.” Maybe if a lot of Christians saw my poster, a few would be curious and look it up? That’s the passage where Bible-god proclaims, “Samaria shall become desolate; for she hath rebelled against her God: they shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up.” Now that’s a proclamation worthy of a primitive man!

In Malachi 2:2-3, the Lord says, “And now, O ye priests, this commandment is for you. If ye will not hear, and if ye will not lay it to heart, to give glory unto my name . . . Behold, I will corrupt your seed, and spread dung upon your faces.” Now, really, does that sound like a god of love or a primitive man?

But, all this is Old Testament stuff and Jesus isn’t like that, you say? Well, in fact, Jesus is perhaps the worst of these primitive offenders as he introduces the concept of hell, a punishment which goes on for ever and ever with no possibility of parole, a punishment which is not in the Old Testament (see John 15:6)

Abraham was ready to kill his son to please a voice in his head, Moses orders his soldiers to go back through the camp, each man “killing his brother and friend and neighbor," Jesus said those who abide not in him would be gathered as branches and “cast into the fire” of hell, and St. Paul said women should shut up in church and never have authority over a man. But Abe Lincoln freed the slaves.

For a guide to morality, I’ll take Abe, thanks. You can have all the rest; they’re all way too primitive for my taste. “Good Book” my arse!

I found a free Android app that lets me create memes for posting on various social sites. One of the myriad templates is the philosoraptor with the following text offered as a sample: If Satan punishes the evildoers, wouldn’t that make him a good guy?

That question made me sit back and think. (I love when that happens, by the way!) The only logical answer would have to be "Yes". I have always heard that Satan is the enemy of God and stands against everything God is for. Since God orders the eternal punishment of people who don’t believe in Him, then why would Satan follow that order if he was The Bad Guy? According to Christian doctrine, Satan and Hell are a special creation of God to punish people who don’t believe in God. Christians believe that people who don’t believe in God are enemies of God, just like Satan. So….what possible reason could there be for Satan to torture those billions who should be his steadfast allies in his fight against God…..unless Satan is on God’s side?

If Satan is indeed the rebellious opposite of God, then Satan would have to be very much AGAINST eternal torture and would absolutely refuse to engage in it simply because God wants him to do it. God could send everyone ever from anywhere to Hell and Satan would not harm them if he were indeed the enemy of God. But if Satan is doing God’s work by following God’s orders to torture people then Satan is God’s muscle, not his enemy. Therefore, Satan is a good guy.

My mother claims that when she was four years old, she floated down a staircase. Astonished by this feat, she ran to the neighborhood children to tell them about her amazing achievement. Some were skeptical, and demanded that she repeat the event in their presence. The crowd gathered in her house as she climbed to the top of the stairs. She stood there trying as hard as she could to launch into the super-human glide that she was certain occurred just minutes beforehand. But nothing happened. As the naysayers began to dispersed, she exclaimed, “You have to eat a lot of carrots!”

“At the mouth of two or three witnesses shall the matter be established.” This biblical axiom is scattered through the Old and New Testaments. And why shouldn’t it be? It’s actually not a bad rule. Certainly, in modern courts of law, when more than one witness independently corroborate a story, the story is given credence and becomes believable. In the Bible, this rule is the premise for excommunication, defrocking, and capital punishment. Yet, this foundation for establishing truth is trampled underfoot in almost every occasion related to the most important circumstances in all of scripture – the interactions between the God and man.

No other person heard the voice that told Abraham to sacrifice his only son, then not to kill him, or the argument he had with God about finding a righteous man in Sodom & Gomorrah, or any of the other messages that Abraham received from God or angels. That’s rather damning for the founder of Judaism, Christianity and Islam…

No other person heard or saw the burning bush where the voice of God commissioned Moses to become the deliverer of the Israelites from Egypt. No other person heard or saw God deliver the Ten Commandments to Moses on Mount Sinai. No other person saw God pass by Moses while he hid behind a rock.

No other person heard God tell Noah to build an ark. No other person actually saw a whale swallow - then subsequently vomit out - Jonah. No other person heard God tell Solomon to ask for anything he desired. Certainly, anytime a prophet communicated with God, it was a one-on-one conversation. Even the angelic messages to Mary and Joseph were delivered individually to each. No one else saw or heard the conversation between Paul and glorified Jesus on the road to Damascus.

“At the mouth of two or three witnesses shall the matter be established.”This observation is not confined to biblical accounts. I can think of no account ever provided by preachers, evangelists, missionaries, apostles, and overly zealous Christians when a message from God was delivered and witnessed by more than one person.

No other person heard God tell Oral Roberts that he would die if he didn’t raise 13 million dollars. Whenever Jimmy Swaggart, Ken Copeland, Jim Bakker, Jerry Falwell or Ernest Angley started a sentence with, “God told me…” then it’s a safe bet that no other person heard this conversation. This observation can even be extended to the angel Gabriel delivering the Quran to Mohammed, the angel Moroni giving golden plates to Joseph Smith, or when Mother Mary appeared to 14 year old Bernadette Soubirous near Lourdes, France in 1858. There was no other person present during these events.

“At the mouth of two or three witnesses…” You would have at least thought that something as incredulous as God writing the Ten Commandments in stone with his finger would have been important enough to do in front of a crowd. None of these people are to be believed. I don’t even believe my own mother. If two or three of those neighborhood children would have witnessed my mother float down that staircase, what might have been…

I trace the beginnings of my spiritual journey to a time when, as a young teen, I began to take interest in the great questions in life and was frequently distracted by a desire to understand how I fit into the big picture. Living near the beach, I often took advantage of the opportunity to sit and contemplate on the shores of Huntington Beach, California. I felt a palpable sense of peace and belonging at the ocean and I often would retreat there for solace. My answers to life’s great questions remained ill defined at this point in my life, but my own native religion was nature-centered and non-theistic.

In my later teen years, however, I came under the influence of several enthusiastic Christian friends. At first, I was very resistant to the Gospel message and to some of the content of the Bible. But over time, my attraction to the welcoming fellowship, the high moral standards, the reassuring divine promises, and the ready supply of answers to my deepest questions, overcame my misgivings. I embrace Jesus as Lord and Saviour, in standard evangelical Christian style, and embarked on what became a 20-year sojourn.

From the beginning, my experience of Christianity was focused around an intense interest in experiencing personal communion with God, understanding the Bible, and living a life of service. Over the years, this resulted in much time spent in private prayer and worship, contemplative retreats into mountain or desert, two college degrees focused on Biblical studies, and ministry pursuits that included an associate pastorship, home bible study fellowships, hospital visitation, street witnessing, feeding the poor in Mexico, and soup kitchen work.

Christianity was always an uncomfortable fit however. Unseen by even my closest Christian friends was a fierce inner struggle to make sense of the full Biblical message and to live a life of integrity consistent with that message. Gradually, serious misgivings about the Bible mounted. Rather than alleviate my doubts, the more I learned about the Bible, the more I encountered intractable problems on every hand. Tension and struggle eventually reached such an extreme that I knew something had to give, yet I felt trapped. Certainly, I told myself, something was wrong with me or my apprehension of the faith. I thought by definition nothing could be wrong with Christianity or the Bible itself.

A watershed moment arrived one day when a close Christian friend of mine casually suggested that all one had to do was place any stumbling stone on the shelf and just continue along the path trusting that, in the end, God would take care of everything, including any doubts. The advice was a well-intentioned bit of standard Christian counsel; the timing however was all-significant. My immediate response was to ask what should be done if those stumbling stones became so numerous and heavy that the shelf were to break. The comment was lost on my friend, but it was a self-revelatory moment. It finally occurred to me that all the tension I felt was due to my being at that breaking point. Cognitive dissonance simply overwhelmed me and I could no longer take refuge in pious evasion. I felt literally suffocated under the weight of so many flimsy rationalizations for Biblical problems. I had to act, so at that moment I decided that I would rethink everything, that none of my assumptions would be off-limits, and that I would follow the truth wherever it took me.

The process was nothing short of traumatic. Not to mention lonely. I came to understand firsthand why several of my seminary friends had experienced nervous breakdowns while struggling through the same process. But in the end, I re-emerged wiser and with new focus, and a sense of peace that I had not known for a long time. I was also no longer a Christian.

Through it all I see myself as having come full circle. Once again my religion is nature-centered and non-theistic. Rather than relying on an invisible, imaginary deity, I now try to live life to the fullest, here and now, and to awaken to all the wonders that surround me.

I’ve moved on from Christianity because, in balance, I no longer find it credible or attractive. Decades of intensive study have lead me to conclude that the Bible shows every sign of having originated in the minds of errant mortals, not divine inspiration. As such, it, like all other human works, is a mix of good, bad and ugly. What follows is a sampling of the evidence that convinced me.

1) Because old sacred texts cannot evolve, religions that rely on them keep the people that live by them stuck in the mindset of the times they were written. This creates the dual problem of perpetuating primitive or even barbaric thinking, and impeding progress. Over the last 2000 years, Christianity has been guilty of both offenses.

The issue of slavery offers an excellent example. Ownership of one human being by another is, of course, the abhorrent essence of slavery. In Leviticus 25:44-46 God grants his people permission to purchase and own slaves, and to enslave them for life:

“‘Your male and female slaves are to come from the nations around you; from them you may buy slaves. You may also buy some of the temporary residents living among you and members of their clans born in your country, and they will become your property. You can bequeath them to your children as inherited property and can make them slaves for life...”

Slaves could also be obtained during wartime. In this passage, God lumps people right together with livestock, no distinctions, just all part of the plunder of war:

Deut. 20:14 - “As for the women, the children, the livestock and everything else in the city, you may take these as plunder for yourselves. And you may use the plunder the Lord your God gives you from your enemies.”

If sanctioning slavery weren’t bad enough God also approved brutal treatment of slaves, pronouncing that a master could beat his slave within an inch of his/her life and, as long as the slave didn't die, the master would suffer no penalty. The divine justification for this cruel ruling: The slave is the master's property!

Exodus 21:20-21 - “Anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod must be punished if the slave dies as a direct result, but they are not to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two, since the slave is their property.”

There it is: Divine sanction of the essence of slavery, right from the mouth of God - or so one must believe if the Bible is accepted as divinely inspired infallible Scripture.

Slavery advocates in our own country used Old Testament passages such as these to defend their practices during the debates that raged in the 18th and 19th centuries. Every civilized human being now recognizes that slavery is an abomination, but this considerable moral progress was made inspite of the Bible, which condones the practice, and not because of it.

2) Accepting the Bible as inerrant, inspired revelation from God also requires one to approve of the barbarisms which ancient Israel committed against their neighbors—including the massacre of men, women, children and nursing babies—at the explicit mandate of God: “Thus says the Lord of Hosts: …attack Amalek…kill both man and woman, infant and nursing child….” (1Samuel 15: 2-3). As it turned out, God was angry with Saul, the King of Israel, and stripped him of his kingship because he didn’t carry out this command completely enough, failing to kill off the king of the Amalekites and the best of their herds.

The enormity of this crime needs to be felt to be appreciated. Imagine this blood-soaked scene: thousands of babies and small children hacked to death with sharp swords, and mothers running in terror clinging to their little ones only to be run down and mercilessly slaughtered. The elderly, the sick and the pregnant similarly shown no mercy. Unfortunately the Amalekites were not a one-time special case as the Israelites went on numerous genocidal rampages at God’s command. See Deut. 20: 16-17 where God demands the slaughter of several other tribes: “...do not leave alive anything that breathes. Completely destroy them—the Hittites, Amorites, Canaanites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites—as the Lord your God has commanded you.”

Seen in historical context, the ancient Israelites were acting like the other nations of the time period in killing for their war god(s). The Moabite stone, for example, contains an inscription in which the Moabite king Mesha (see 2 Kings 3) told of victories that he had won through his god Chemosh who "saved me from all the kings and let me see my desire upon my adversaries." Later in the inscription, Mesha said this about a victory his forces had won over Israel: "But Chemosh drove him [the king of Israel] out before me." This statement has a very Old Testament feel to it, only this time it’s Israel’s enemies claiming victory through their god. In another example, pavement slabs in the temple of Urta at Nimrud contain an inscription by the Assyrian king Ashurnasirpal II in which he described the massacre of 600 warriors and 3,000 captives he had taken in battle "at the command of the great gods.”

No matter what kind of rationalization is used by the believer, the chilling fact must be faced that belief in the Bible as infallible Scripture compels the justification of genocide, of saying that these ancient atrocities were right and moral because God commanded them. There is no middle ground here: It’s a choice between standing by this ancient war-god, even to the point of defending his commands to massacre babies, or surrender belief in the Bible as God’s word.

3) The law purportedly delivered to Moses by God bears an uncanny resemblance to other Mesopotamian law codes, such as the Code of Hammurabi, the Law of Eshnunna, and the law of Ur-Nammu. All of these other law codes derive from the Old Babylonian empire or the Sumerians and predated the law of Moses by many centuries. Not surprisingly many (but not all) of these laws appear primitive or barbaric by modern standards. But the point being made here is that, once again, when compared to the background culture of the day, supposed revelations from God start to look all too human, and derived from the thought of the time period, not the mind of an omniscient creator. Here are a few of the many similarities which indicate not only the same laws but the same principles upon which laws were based:

-- Body parts were to be cut off for certain crimes.

-- A raped virgin was to be given as a wife to the rapist.

-- Restitution/penalty was based on the social status of the victim. Lives of slaves are compensated for with money whereas it was life for life with other victims.

-- Trial by ordeal was prescribed to determine the guilt or innocence of a woman accused of adultery. The husband pays no penalty if wife proven innocent.

-- A false accuser was to suffer the penalty that his charges would have brought on the accused. E.g. if the false accuser charged another with murder, the false accuser dies.

-- A conflict involving the loss of borrowed or deposited goods is settled by taking an oath before god.

-- Rules were defined for selling family members or self into servitude, as well as time limits for letting servants go free. The Code of Hammurabi stipulated freedom after three years, the Mosaic law after six.

-- Death was the punishment for a couple caught in adultery.

-- Eye for eye, tooth for tooth principle of justice, articulated using these exact same body parts.

-- Nearly identical statements are made about responsibility for an ox which gores someone to death, and the greater responsibility of an owner of an animal with a violent reputation.

-- Nearly identical statements are made stating that an animal caretaker is not responsible for the death of an animal killed by a wild animal but was required to bring the remains to the owner.

Even what might appear to be highly enlightened aspects of the Mosaic law are also found to be in step with the thinking of the time. Yes, the law of Moses encourages compassion for the orphan, the widow and the poor. But a very similar social justice concern is found in the Law of Ur-Nammu: The orphan was not to be delivered up to the rich man; the widow was not to be delivered up to the mighty man; the man of one shekel was not to be delivered up to the man of one mina. So also with the Mosaic practice of canceling all debts every seventh year, and the year of Jubilee in which sold land was returned to its previous owners. For centuries prior to the Mosaic law it had been the practice in Mesopotamia during the Old Babylonian period for kings to proclaim an act of justice at the beginning of their reigns or at intervals of seven or more years thereafter. Like the law of Moses these edicts called for the forgiveness of debts and the reversion of land holdings to their original owners.

4) Hell: The ancient Jews believed that the spirits of everyone who had ever lived - including all of their saints - were in the cold, dark and dreary underworld of Sheol. The Old Testament knows nothing of a fiery underworld place of never-ending afterlife torment. This idea, largely inspired by the Greek concept of Hades, grew in popularity during the great cultural intermixing that occurred in the intertestamental period. Active volcanoes, spewing molten lava and smoke from the depths of the earth, were thought by the ancients to lend credence to this notion. Not surprisingly, intertestamental Jewish theologians adopted this idea of hellfire.

So did Jesus and the apostolic writers. But as a result this mere accident of history still saddles us today, some 2,000 years later, with the idea of a divine torture chamber, perhaps the most abhorrent, sadistic concept ever conceived. It’s one thing if Hitler, Pol Pot or Saddam Hussein engaged in acts of mass torture, but the Creator of the universe?

The concept of Hell is actually so toxic and archaic that few modern-day Christians truly believe it. Most believers, out of necessity, employ various kinds of coping mechanisms in an attempt to live a consistent Christian life with Hell as part of their belief system. These coping mechanisms typically take the form of avoidance—the concept of Hell is simply put out of mind—or re-definition—Hell is watered down to be a metaphor for more palatable concepts like separation from God, or annihilation.

5) Anthropomorphic deity: Egocentrism is a hallmark feature of immaturity. Mankind in its childhood supposed itself and its world to be the literal center of the universe. All heavenly bodies were thought to revolve around the earth. The sun existed to give light to the day, the stars and moon, light at night (Genesis 1). Every tribe thought that its central place was the center of the world; not surprisingly, the Jews asserted this honor for Jerusalem. Cut from the same cloth is the notion that the ultimate mystery of the universe and source of all being is a person just like us. Aristotle hit the nail on the head long ago: "Men create gods after their own image...." Just as mankind has outgrown the notion of an earth-centered universe, the time is long overdue to put off the childish notion of a great parent in the sky.

6) The denigration of women—seen both in overt statements, such as "it is a shame for a woman to speak in church," and in the complete lockout of women from any significant leadership positions (“A woman should learn in quietness and full submission. I do not permit a woman to teach or to have authority over a man; she must be silent.”)—is clear testimony to bias on the part of the Bible's all-male authors. Human bias of this sort is inconsistent with the idea of divinely inspired scripture, but is exactly what one would expect from male religious leaders in the ancient world. On this score even Mao was a vast improvement: “Women hold up half the sky,” he said. Holding half of the race down, leaving undeveloped half of our talent, is a crime against humanity for which Christianity is guilty.

7) The concept of sacrificing something important to the gods or spirits is found in religions around the world. Usually, the more important the god or the request, the more important the sacrifice had to be. The most important thing which could be sacrificed was, usually, a human being. Typically, the person was sacrificed for the sake of the welfare of the entire community — to appease an angry god who had cursed the tribe, to plea for better crops, to ensure success in a coming battle, etc. Because such needs were universal, human sacrifice was quite commonplace among ancient peoples (e.g., Aztecs, Mayans, Incas, early Greeks & Romans, Vikings, some Middle Eastern tribes, early Chinese & Japanese).

Unfortunately Christianity, through its central idea of the sacrificial death of Christ for the sins of the world, perpetuates this dreadful concept. Unadorned by its social acceptance, developed theology and other trappings, Christianity at its core is a primitive religion based on appeasing an angry, invisible deity through human sacrifice: “Since we have now been justified by his [Christ’s] blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him” (Romans 5:9).

8) Degrading divine-human relationship: Mirroring the authoritarian political structures of the time, Judeo-Christian patterns of worship/prayer follow from a primitive view of God as despot to be placated, appeased and flattered. The similar master-slave depiction of the divine-human relationship, featured prominently in the Bible, is equally degrading and outmoded.

9) In Christianity, this earth is a temporary stage that God will soon destroy, this life a brief passageway to a life without end, in a world beyond death. Believers are encouraged by scripture to see themselves as strangers or aliens in this life, to live out their time here as foreigners, to view their citizenship as being in heaven, and to not love anything in this world, which is under the power of Satan. These sentiments may have made life more bearable to the downtrodden Jews of the first century who despaired of life under foreign domination, and who despised a world wracked with war, famine and injustice, where life was often short and brutish. But this emphasis upon the afterlife and the denigration of life in this world is wrong and perverse in its effects.

At its very least, it prevents the full participation in and embracing of life in this world with all of its joys and sorrows, triumphs and failures. There is also the tendency to create a mindset that discourages improving life here and now. Sure the Bible exhorts one to help a neighbor in need, but there is no injunction to correct structural evil because this world is considered beyond hope. From a strictly biblical point of view, working for the long-term betterment of mankind would make as much sense as trying to establish a social program aboard the sinking Titanic. The only true hope in Christianity involves escape from this doomed world, as from a sinking ship, and resides in a salvation process wherein one is placed on God's salvage list for those to be spared when the current world is incinerated.

This belief also tends to inhibit the progress of science and the natural curiosity that motivates it. Consider this revealing quote from St. Ambrose (a 4th century church father): "To discuss the nature and position of the earth does not help us in our hope of the life to come." St. Ambrose was not at all unique or unusual in his sentiments—biblical theology directly breeds this kind of value system. Christians who hold to different priorities only come to do so when they begin to think independently and/or come in contact with non-Christian influences.

10) Christianity demands an extreme, unrealistic ethic. In large part this is due to the emergency-mode nature of the NT outlook; that is, one must live as if the world were coming to an end at any moment: “What I mean, brothers and sisters, is that the time is short. From now on those who have wives should live as if they do not; those who mourn, as if they did not; those who are happy, as if they were not; those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep; those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away.” (1Cor. 7:29-31)

This sense of emergency created by an impending apocalypse is further intensified by the high stakes involved: the threat of being sentenced to eternal torment and losing everlasting bliss. If the choices made in this lifetime really do determine an eternity of either torment or bliss, then saving oneself and as many others as possible isn't just the pre-eminent concern, it is life's only concern. Nothing else makes any rational sense. If taken seriously, this perspective renders any kind of normal life impossible, and promotes crippling anxiety and guilt.

The extreme nature of the NT ethic can also be seen in Jesus' unqualified prohibition against divorce found in the earliest written of the four Gospels, Mark (10: 11-12), as well as in Luke 16:17. This simply does not work in the real world—and everyone knows it. The fact that exceptions for unfaithfulness (Mat. 5:32) or abandonment (1Cor. 7:15) had to be added later by apostolic writers reveals the untenable nature of Jesus' blanket proscription. Witness also the Catholic Church and its annulment practice, or most Protestant pastors who, through theological artifice, attempt to stretch the stated divorce exceptions to deal with life's inevitable tough cases.

11) Biblical inerrancy: the concept, at its base, arises as a salve for our existential angst, an answer to that human longing for a voice of certainty in an uncertain world. But certainty in this world is neither possible nor desirable: not possible because life in this world, if it is anything, is ever-changing and unpredictable; not desirable because the adventure of living is in great measure the challenge of forging a meaningful life in an ever-changing world where the end result of one’s efforts cannot be known. Those who seek the certainty of inerrant revelation are demanding a guarantee on life which doesn't exist and short-changing the life that they have been given. Those who think that Christianity has supplied them with certainty have been deceived, and are therefore worse off than before.

Judeo-Christian patterns of worship/prayer follow from a primitive view of God as despot to be placated, appeased and flattered.12) Revealed religion—that is, religion built upon revelation from God—carries within it a terrible, built-in danger. Followers of revealed religion understandably believe that they possess the final, ultimate truth of God, which inevitably leads to the imposition of that truth on others, justified by the belief that they are acting according to divine mandate. To compound the problem, the New Testament commonly refers to unbelievers in the most disdainful manner—“wicked evil doers,” ”unholy,” “of the darkness,” “lawless,” “sinners,” “of the devil,” “under the wrath of God,” “damned,” bound for hell, and “dead,” just to name a few. The result is a truly dangerous mix which has the potential to go far beyond mere judgmental attitudes, intolerance and divisiveness, though those things are certainly bad enough. One could easily predict that a revealed religion of this nature would inevitably lead to all manner of horrors: everything from witch hunts to wars and inquisitions. History has more than borne out this prediction.

In modern times, this same unholy cocktail of incendiary ideas—inherited in part from Christian theology—currently drives much of the religion-inspired terrorism and the us-versus-them religious violence that sweeps our world. "Men never do evil so completely and cheerfully as when they do it from religious conviction." (Blaise Pascal) "Man is a Religious Animal. He is the only Religious Animal. He is the only animal that has the True Religion -- several of them. He is the only animal that loves his neighbor as himself and cuts his throat if his theology isn't straight." (Mark Twain)

In addition, revealed religion and intellectual freedom are mutually exclusive. If one accepts the concept of revelation, that once-for-all truth has been delivered to humanity by the Creator of the universe, what a person can and cannot reasonably explore is severely restricted. If revelation makes it clear, for example, that there is a destiny of heaven or hell awaiting every person, can one reasonably consider otherwise? If God weighs in, the debate ends and the limits of inquiry are defined. Certain concepts are simply out of bounds; the idea of heresy is born. Thus Christianity narrows the range of human thought and behavior, corralling both mind and life, creating unfree conformists to a supposedly divine dictate.

13) Faith is a trusting commitment not substantiated by evidence or reasoned proof. To make the ultimate life commitment required by the Christian salvation experience, without reasoned consideration of the issues and ramifications, is foolhardy and dangerous. This is the means by which millions become trapped within absurd cults, sometimes with lethal consequences. What may start with an admonition to "just let your heart guide you" may end with a final taste of funny Kool-Aid.

14) The New Testament's claim that Jesus of Nazareth fulfilled many Old Testament messianic prophecies doesn't withstand scrutiny. Virtually every example of fulfilled prophecy exhibits abuse of the original Old Testament context or the facts.

Matthew's 14-generation scheme in Mt.1 (“Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Messiah” (1:17)), whereby he attempts to show how Jesus is the grand culmination of Old Testament salvation history, is a classic example. It’s a force fit: he left out a handful of generations in order to make it work.

Mt.2:18—the New Testament writer contends that Herod's decree to kill the male children at Bethlehem fulfilled a prophecy of Jeremiah (31:15) which refers to "Rachel weeping for her children." Jeremiah however is addressing the problem of Jewish dispersion caused by Babylonian captivity. The "children" referred to are the Jewish people, the descendants of Rachel, who were relocated to Babylon. They were not the victims of a massacre. Far from it, for they, as Jeremiah stated, would "…come back from the land of the enemy (Jer.31:17)." Jer.31:15 has everything to do with the Babylonian captivity and nothing to do with Herod killing children at Bethlehem. Only by doing violence to this passage can Mt.2:18 assert prophetic fulfillment.

Mt.21:4-5—here the New Testament writer commits two fouls in first misinterpreting Zech.9:9 and then manipulating the Jesus story in order to match his misunderstanding. He mistook the obvious parallelism of the Old Testament passage to mean that both a donkey and a foal were being ridden at the same time, instead of the donkey and foal being parallel references to the same animal (perhaps the most common of all Hebrew literary devices). Then he, unlike either of the other two gospel writers who retold this story, portrays Jesus stunt-riding on both animals simultaneously. At best this is an embarrassment; it certainly isn't divinely inspired predictive prophecy.

In historical context, the New Testament writers were employing the same technique used by their contemporaries at Qumran (the community that produced the Dead Sea Scrolls) who likewise wrested numerous Old Testament passages from their context in order to use them as prophetic credentials for their leader, the one they called the "Teacher of Righteousness."

15) In a religious environment where predictions about the end of the world were very common, Jesus fit right in. He explicitly and repeatedly promised to return to his contemporary generation, an event which he said would usher in the end of the world and the final judgment:

“For the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then he will reward each person according to what they have done. Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” (Mat. 16:27-28)

“At that time they will see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near. He told them this parable: “Look at the fig tree and all the trees. When they sprout leaves, you can see for yourselves and know that summer is near. Even so, when you see these things happening, you know that the kingdom of God is near. Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.” (Luke 21:27-33)

When Jesus warned his contemporaries about the coming judgment he was talking about a cataclysmic event, an imminent, apocalyptic inbreaking of God that would hit them, his immediate hearers. The Gospel writers summarized his message as “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand,” (Mat. 4:17; Mark 1:15) a reference to the impending end of the age when God overturns the forces of evil and restores his rule (the “kingdom of heaven”) over a rebellious world. In short, Jesus was a doomsday prophet analogous to the kind found on modern street-corners holding a sign with “The End of the World is Near.”

The New Testament writers frequently repeated this belief in Jesus’ promised return, that the end of the world was imminent, and that they were the terminal generation. In fact this theme is so prominent that no coherent understanding of the New Testament is possible without its recognition. See Rom. 13:11-2; 16:20; 1Cor. 1:7-8; 7:29-31; 10:11; 15:51f; Phil. 1:6, 10; 4:5; 1Thes. 1:9-10; 2:19; 4:13-7; 5:23; Heb. 1:1-2; 9:26; 10:36-7; Jas. 5:8-9; 1Pet. 1:4-7, 13, 20; 2:12; 4:7, 12-13; 1John 2:18; Rev 1:1-3; 3:10-11; 22:6, 10-12, 20.

When first generation believers began to die before this promised coming, the apostolic leaders sought to shore up the faithful as Paul attempted to do with his explanations in 1 Thes. 4:13-17 and 1 Corinthians 15: 51-2. In these passages he clearly indicates that not all of the believers then living would die but that some would be alive at Jesus’ coming:

“Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. According to the Lord’s word, we tell you that we who are still alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will certainly not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever.” (1 Thes. 4:13-17)

“Listen, I tell you a mystery: We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed — in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.” (1 Corinthians 15: 51-2)

However when the first generation of believers had completely died off, the church faced a thorny problem with opponents who used the failure of this grand promise to mock the faith. 2 Peter, likely the latest of the New Testament books, explicitly addresses this crisis:

“Above all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires. They will say, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our ancestors died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.” (2 Peter 3:3-4)

But, sadly, rather than face a difficult truth squarely, the author of 2 Peter still clings to the notion of living in the “last days” and proceeds to try and rescue the situation by resort to theological spin doctoring (2 Peter 3:5-18). These efforts at damage control remind one of what religious groups throughout the ages have done when prophecy fails. Rather than learn the lesson that failure attempts to teach and rethink basic assumptions, the sacrosanct is shielded from all true reappraisal and the prophecy is salvaged through the use of spiritual fulfillment notions or other creative theological recasting. The truth is sometimes painful: Jesus was a failed doomsday prophet.

16) Airbrushing Jesus:

On three occasions the earliest Gospel, Mark, records that Jesus became angry, 1:40-45, 3:1-6 and 10:13-16. When Matthew and Luke adapted these stories from Mark (roughly half of Mark’s material was used by Matthew and Luke), in each case they sanitized the text by removing all reference to Jesus’ anger. (See Mt. 8:1-4; 19:13-15: Lk. 5:12-16; 18:15-17) Apparently anger wasn’t thought to be a suitable emotion for the Son of God to display. In the first of these cases, Mk. 1:40-45, Jesus inexplicably appears to get angry with a leper due to how he asked him for healing. This appeared so unseemly to later handlers of the NT text that some changed the wording so that it read Jesus felt compassion toward the leper rather than anger. Most translations, like the King James version, contain the “compassion” reading because it is obviously more palatable, but the oldest and best texts read “anger”, and this is reflected in some newer translations (e.g. NIV).

The makeover Jesus underwent is clearly on display when comparing the earlier Gospels - Mark, Matthew and Luke - to the latest Gospel, John. Apparently realizing that a lot of hellfire and brimstone talk wasn’t the best way to market Jesus, John sanitized most of this from the text and significantly ramped up the love talk which, of course, is how the Gospel of John has come to be known as the love Gospel. Jesus actually speaks very sparingly about love in the earlier three Gospels, a grand total of about 19 verses between them. By comparison over 220 verses depict Jesus the firebrand preacher speaking of hell, condemnation or judgment. (In fact, Jesus speaks more about hell than everyone else in the Bible combined.) So there’s roughly an 11 to 1 ratio of judgment talk to love talk in the first three Gospels, whereas love outweighs judgment in John roughly 60/40 - quite a radical shift! And quite an extreme makeover.

As described in #15 above, the early church had a real problem on its hands due to the failure of Jesus’ promise to return during the lifetime of his contemporaries, a problem which cut right to the heart of his reputation, and by extension the integrity of the gospel message. This of course couldn’t be allowed to stand. Paul was already starting to address this issue mid-century as believers began to die off, and the author of 2Peter had a full-blown crisis to deal with by century’s end. Coming toward the end of the century the Gospel of John was written against the backdrop of this crisis. Not surprisingly, John repeated none of these statements about the impending apocalypse and the return of Jesus which would usher in the end of the world. His makeover now complete, the fiery, volatile, doomsday prophet had now been transformed into the kinder, gentler Jesus of popular imagination.

17) New Testament miracles: These were very superstitious times wherein people believed that miraculous events occurred routinely. Humankind was only beginning to mature out of its childhood at this stage in history and was prone to using supernatural explanations for any process in nature that was not understood, which means just about everything. Gods, angels, demons, fairies, spirits, etc. were a means of labeling the inscrutable. This method was applied to anything from sickness to comets, lightning to volcanoes, bird flight to sunsets, rainbows to windstorms.

The miraculous was also frequently used to adorn momentous occurrences and revered individuals. The writings of both Jewish and Roman historians during this time period attest to this practice. Suetonius, a Roman historian, claimed that the Roman Senate witnessed Augustus Caesar ascend into heaven. Both Suetonius and Tacitus, another Roman historian, assert that the emperor Vespasian healed a blind man by putting saliva on his eyes, and a crippled man by touching him—miraculous events which purportedly were witnessed by many people. Josephus, a Jewish historian, claimed that during the time of the First Jewish War (66-70 CE) a heifer being led to the temple altar gave birth to a lamb, that the temple gate, which took some 20 men to open and close, opened of its own accord one night, and that chariots and soldiers were seen in the clouds around Jerusalem. He further states that the latter miracle was seen by too many people to doubt it.

Evidence from within the New Testament, and from the extra-biblical Jesus tales that followed, reveal a myth-making process that began with the earliest apologists (the Gospel writers) trying to make the case for Jesus as Messiah. As the New Testament repeatedly affirms, the "Jews seek [miraculous] signs"—and that is exactly what the New Testament writers attempted to provide. So some 30 to 60 years after the death of Jesus they gathered the circulating miracle stories about Jesus and compiled them into the four Gospels. Yet close inspection of the parallel miracle stories they wrote reveals evidence of growth and accretion. Just like the proverbial fish story, the miracle story has a tendency over time to become more miraculous. The non-canonical stories that followed grew ever more fantastic and attempted to fill in the gaps left by the New Testament accounts, such as miracle stories from Jesus' childhood. Many of these stories were considered by early Christians to be as divinely inspired as any of the books of the Bible in our present canon. They were read at church services as regularly as we read from the Gospels in today's services. Despite the fact that the church eventually chose to distance itself from these later stories, they form a continuous line of tradition with the officially sanctioned tales.

That the miracles of Jesus are non-historical myths would explain why no contemporary writers ever mentioned Jesus or his miracles which supposedly attracted multitudes and put Judea into such an uproar. It also accounts for how raising Lazarus from the dead neither caught the attention of at least one historian nor that of the other three Gospel writers.

There is a very great difference between accepting assertions about impossible events made by a few people in superstitious times two thousand years ago, with no corroborating evidence, and accepting the results of modern experiments repeated hundreds of thousands of times under rigorous controls, always with the same results.

18) Virtually every major aspect of New Testament theology and the story of Jesus can be found "off-the-shelf" in the religious milieu of the day. This reality belies the claim that Christianity is based upon divine revelation, and reveals the all too human basis of Christian belief.

The early Christians behaved like every other group in every other era -- they adopted and adapted ideas from the culture around them. What Paul and the other early biblical writers had wasn't on their tables, it was in their heads. What they had were the same general notions of divinity, cosmology and humanity, and how those things worked together, that everyone had in their time. They knew how gods worked, so when they wrote about Jesus, they made sure he worked like a god. Not only did Jesus do the same miracles the earlier pagan gods did, but the gospel stories of his miracles are told using the old pagan formula of an aretalogy, listing the miracles and great deeds of the god. Jesus is depicted as the son of god who suffered, died, and was reborn. But he wasn't the first son of god who suffered, died, and was reborn. He brought salvation, but he wasn't the first god to do that either. His mother was a virgin; he wasn't the first god there either. It's the same with miracles, baptism, the Eucharist, heaven, hell, prophecy, and eternal life; the list goes on and on. The pagans had them all, and generations before Jesus.

Like Osiris, Dionysus, Attis, Mithras and many others, Jesus was a god, shaped like a man, walking, talking, eating, but still having magic god powers. Like the other pagan god-men, Jesus was a subordinate god, son of the great universal god, miraculously conceived in a mortal woman, living for a while on earth rather than in heaven, helping people. Jesus was not a xerox copy of one particular pagan god. Jesus was new in the same way the first Honda Accord was a new car. But the Accord wasn't the first car. The Accord was a new arrangement of old ideas, some new, but mostly old. So was Jesus.

19) The Resurrection: Five reasons why rational people cannot believe the New Testament accounts: (1) Resurrected savior-gods were commonplace in the pagan religions that flourished before, during, and after the time Jesus of Nazareth lived; (2) Typical of very superstitious times, residents of 1st century Palestine were prone to believe resurrection stories (see, for example, Mt.14:1; 27:52-3); (3) The claim that a dead man was restored to life is an extremely extraordinary claim (to say the least!) that requires extremely extraordinary proof; (4) The only biblical proof in support of the resurrection claim is hearsay in nature; and (5) The NT accounts of the resurrection are both contradictory and incredible.

20) Biblical source material: 2 Peter 2:20-1 states that “no prophecy of Scripture came about by the prophet’s own interpretation of things. For prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” Evidence from the New Testament, however, tells a different story. The writers of 2 Peter and Jude were guilty of serious errors that reveal the all too human, very fallible nature of their enterprise. Both Peter and Jude placed heavy theological weight upon an intertestamental tale about angels during the time of Noah who had intercourse with women resulting in evil, giant offspring (2 Pet 2:4; Jude 6 – I did my Master’s Thesis on this topic and the connection between 2 Pet 2:4/Jude 6 and the intertestamental sinful imprisoned angels tradition is incontrovertible). To aid in combating enemies of the church, Peter and Jude both used this tale as a key, authoritative example of divine judgment against wrongdoers. It is plain by their usage of it that, in their estimation, these sinful angels were as historic and authentic, and the insights gleaned as revelatory as, say, the story of Israel in the wilderness. The chief intertestamental source of this tale, I Enoch, was quoted as inspired, holy writ by Jude (Jude 14-5). Jude also mistakenly believed that the ancient, antediluvian Enoch actually wrote I Enoch (Jude 14). Peter, an apostolic leader, conferred the ultimate seal of approval by incorporating almost all of Jude's letter into his second epistle.

These problems cannot be dismissed as incidental or unimportant; they strike at the heart of Christianity’s credibility. Regarding I Enoch, it is plain that Jude didn’t understand the true nature of the very source materials upon which he so heavily relied. He naively placed his full trust in this very contrived, highly fanciful writing which scholars universally agree was produced in the two centuries preceding the time of Jesus. Most modern-day Christians, if they only knew, would be horrified to read I Enoch and to realize that this was the type of material from which the New Testament writers derived their theology and inspiration. Peter, a leading apostolic writer, is thus found engaging in fundamental theological reasoning about God and his character from a tradition which is so grossly mythological, a story which is so obviously fictional, that his reliability on spiritual matters must be seriously questioned.

Thankfully, examples such as this one exist wherein the sincere seeker of truth can sweep back the curtain of mystery that surrounds the production of the New Testament and gain a behind-the-scenes look at how the New Testament writers worked and from what sources their ideas actually derive. If, when we are able to put them to the test, the apostolic writers are found to be untrustworthy, why should they be trusted on matters that cannot be so readily scrutinized critically?

When it comes to witchcraft, very few things can be proven, but this can: my great . . . [number of greats unknown]. . . great grandmother, Mary Perkins Bradbury, was tried and convicted of witchcraft in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692, when she was 78 years old.

According to one source, “Witnesses testified that she assumed animal forms; her most unusual metamorphosis was said to have been that of a blue boar. Another allegation was that she cast spells upon ships. Over a hundred of her neighbors and townspeople testified on her behalf, but to no avail and she was found guilty of practicing magic and sentenced to be executed. Through the ongoing efforts of her friends, her execution was delayed. After the witch debacle had passed, she was released.”

Mary was actually one of the more fortunate players in this sad New England drama. Before it was over, twenty men and women were executed and five others died in jail.

But, witches don’t exist! How could such madness happen? In the end, it appears to have resulted from a few people who actually knew nothing being accepted as authorities on something.

Belief in magic and witchcraft has been around since the earliest human cultures. Man appears to have a built-in propensity to believe that when something bad happens, that thing was intended by some conscious agency; someone must be responsible. With the rise of Christianity, it became common to assume that witches were in league with Satan.

Practically from the beginnings of written language, a wide and deep lore of witchcraft was developed and passed from generation to generation. What might be termed the first “official,” widely read and influential book on witches was written in 1486 by Heinrich Kramer, a German Catholic clergyman. The “Malleus Maleficarum,” meaning "Hammer of the Witches,” is a treatise on the prosecution of witches, written to discredit those who expressed skepticism about witches, and to educate legal authorities on how to identify and convict them.

Between the years 1487 and 1520, the Malleus was published thirteen times (and sixteen more times between 1574 and 1669). Thus, while the book was never officially sanctioned by the Catholic Church, it was enormously influential and became the handbook for secular courts throughout Renaissance Europe.

The Malleus is basically a how-to guide to recognizing, capturing, torturing, and executing witches. An edition of the Malleus currently available on Amazon.com is 308 pages long, and apparently contains very little commentary. It is thus a very detailed compendium of “knowledge” on witches and witchcraft.

Each chapter in the book is comprised of a question and its detailed answer. While many of these questions strike us as comical today, we must keep in mind that the author was deadly serious; I say “deadly” because thousands of innocent people were tortured and executed because of this work.
Here are a few examples:

Question VI: Concerning Witches who copulate with Devils. Why is it that women are chiefly addicted to Evil superstitions?

Question IX: Whether Witches may work some Prestidigitary Illusion so that the Male Organ appears entirely removed and separate from the body.

Question XVIII: Here follows the Method of Preaching and Controverting Five Arguments of Laymen and Lewd Folk, which seem to be Variously Approved, that God does not Allow so Great Power to the Devil and Witches as is involved in the Performance of such Mighty Works of Witchcraft.

The Malleus makes no attempt to actually prove the existence of witches, it simply assumes their existence and builds from there. For the author, a clergyman, the Bible provided both tradition and authority; no further proof was needed than the words of Exodus 22:18, “Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.”

Yahweh, much like witches, appears to be nothing more than a mirage pasted on a shadow balanced on an assumption.This is the fatal flaw of the Malleus Maleficarum: the existence of witches was never proven. Thus, a broad body of knowledge was claimed and disseminated on a subject the author, the AUTHORITY, in fact knew nothing about!

This created a situation wherein nothing actually had to be proven to convict someone of witchcraft. In fact, nothing could have been proven about an alleged witch or his/her powers, since there never was a “true” witch. By “true” witch, I mean a human with supernatural powers via magical brews, incantations, etc.

It is ironic that the Bible provided the authority for the existence of witches since the Bible suffers from the same fatal flaw as the Malleus; the authors of the Bible made no real attempt to prove the existence of a god. To my knowledge, the only passage that appears to offer any evidence at all is Paul’s assertion in Roman’s 1:20, “For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.” But, of course, this passage just assumes that because there’s a world then there must have been a creator, but it certainly doesn’t prove it. And, besides, what if creation was the work of another god, not Yahweh? Paul never considers this issue. The Bible authors simply assumed Yahweh was the principle (or only) god, and built everything else on that assumption.

Yahweh, much like witches, appears to be nothing more than a mirage pasted on a shadow balanced on an assumption. There is no foundational proof. The Malleus Maleficarum, based on a blind appeal to tradition and authority, tore through the Middle Ages destroying the lives of thousands upon thousands of innocent people. Ironically, it was based on another book which is likewise no more than a blind appeal to tradition and authority. And that book, the Bible, has caused even more destruction as it very effectively undermined reason, man’s sole defense against the ravages of nonsense.

It seems the Enlightenment’s insightful instruction to question authority and demand evidence has enabled huge progress in science, politics, economics, and other fields, but has hardly put a dent in entrenched religious superstition.

The lesson is simple: Beware of anything or anyone claiming to be an authority. If the matter is important, then one should demand evidence and insist on proof. Remember: some of the most influential men in history, like Heinrich Kramer and St. Paul, were fools, frauds, or both.

When it comes to matters of individual conscience, Washington State voters have a don’t-mess-with-us attitude that makes Texans look like cattle—and it goes way back.

In 2012 Washington voters flexed their muscle by legalizing recreational marijuana use and marriage for same-sex couples. In 2008, death with dignity passed some counties by as much as seventy-five percent. In 2006, Washington lawmakers outlawed discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. In 1991 a citizen initiative established that “every individual has the fundamental right to choose or refuse birth control” and “every woman has the fundamental right to choose or refuse abortion.” It also guaranteed an absolute right to privacy around mental health and reproductive issues for teens aged 13 and up. Washington State’s constitution includes an Equal Rights Amendment and (from the get-go) a stronger wall of separation between church and state than the U.S. Constitution.

These measures have broad support from Washington citizens of all stripes including most religious people. That includes most Catholics, who, in the words of one Seattle parishioner, think that the bishops "need to get over it."

In other words, west of Moscow, Idaho, and north of Portland, any bishops who want to control what they think of as theirsacramentalturf --birth, coming of age, sex, marriage, trippy transcendent experiences, and death—haven’t got a chance in hell at the ballot box. Washington even has extended statutes of limitations on child sex abuse—something Archbishop Timothy Dolan successfully fended off in New York and Pennsylvania. The Archdiocese of Spokane declared bankruptcy.

Rather than care being dictated by medical science and patient preference, a set of religious doctrines place restrictions on what treatment options can be offered to (or even discussed with) patients.But the Vatican hasn’t survived for fifteen hundred years by being stupid. And as my devout family members like to say, “Where God closes a door, he opens a window.” The window the Bishops found open in Washington takes the form of independent hospitals with financial problems.

Thanks to changes in health care delivery, more and more independent hospitals are being forced to merge with large health care corporations. The pressures include expensive equipment, complex electronic record keeping technologies, and an Obamacare-driven push for greater administrative efficiency. Rather like mom-and-pop hardware stores that survived by becoming Ace franchisees with standardized, streamlined supply and distribution systems, independent health facilities are surviving through acquisitions and mergers with other hospitals and health care corporations.

Of the largest health care corporations in the country, five of six are administered by the Catholic Church including the famously conservative Catholic Health Initiatives which operates the Franciscan brand and has $15 billion in assets. By the end of 2013, if all proposed mergers go through, 45 percent of Washington hospital beds will be religiously affiliated. In ten counties, 100 percent of hospital facilities will be accountable to religious corporations, which are rapidly buying up outpatient clinics, laboratories, and physician practices as well.

New partnerships can be viewed as opportunities for Catholic health-care institutions and services to witness to their religious and ethical commitments and so influence the healing profession,” . . . “For example, new partnerships can help to implement the Church’s social teaching.”

Here is the diabolical stroke of genius. In any merger between a secular and Catholic care system, fiscal health comes with a poison pill. One condition of the merger is that the whole system becomes subject to a set of theological agreements call the “Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services” or ERDs. Rather than care being dictated by medical science and patient preference, a set of religious doctrines place restrictions on what treatment options can be offered to (or even discussed with) patients.

Under these agreements, the patient-doctor relationship becomes a patient-doctor-church relationship: “The Church’s moral teaching on healthcare nurtures a truly interpersonal professional-patient relationship. This professional-patient relationship is never separated, then, from the Catholic identity of the health care institution.” Furthermore providers who work in these systems are required to sign binding contractual agreements to adhere to the religious directives, whether or not they are Catholic: “Catholic health care services must adopt these Directives as policy, require adherence to them within the institution as a condition for medical privileges and employment, and provide appropriate instruction regarding the Directives . . . .”

The ERDs in full are readily available to the public, but here are some key samples and implications:

Fertility Treatment:“Reproductive technologies that substitute for the marriage act are not consistent with human dignity.” This provision excludes in vitro fertilization and related treatments. It especially affects same sex couples, who may rely on surrogacy or insemination for childbearing, but it also affects the 10 percent of American couples who have fertility problems.

Contraception:“Catholic health institutions may not promote or condone contraceptive practices.” . . . “Direct sterilization of either men or women, whether permanent or temporary, is not permitted in a Catholic health care institution.” While we don’t typically associate contraception with hospitals, state-of-the-art long acting methods like IUD’s increasingly are provided at the time of delivery, because post partum insertion improves health outcomes. Under ERD guidelines, a woman who delivers a baby at a Catholic hospital and wants and IUD or to have her tubes tied has to have a second, separate procedure at a secular facility—if they can find one.

Abnormal Pregnancies:“In case of extrauterine pregnancy, no intervention is morally licit which constitutes a direct abortion.” Catholic practice encourages the removal of the entire fallopian tube to end an ectopic pregnancy, rather than the standard practice which simply ablates the developing fetus. That is because the standard treatment is considered abortion, while in the invasive and fertility-destroying surgery, death of the embryo is simply a side effect. More broadly, Catholic “ethics” forbid abortion even to save the life of a mother carrying a nonviable fetus. The battle to save a young woman named Beatriz in El Salvador exemplifies this very situation.

Advance Directives - “a Catholic health care institution . . . will not honor an advance directive that is contrary to Catholic teaching.” Where patient directives and bishop directives conflict, the directives of the bishops take precedence regardless of a patient’s own religious or conscience obligations.

DNR - “The free and informed judgment made by a competent adult patient concerning the use or withdrawal of life-sustaining procedures should always be respected and normally complied with, unless it is contrary to Catholic moral teaching.” Since this battle heated up, stories are emerging in which Catholic hospitals have force fed incapacitated patients whose advance directives specifically stipulated that this not happen.

Death with Dignity – “Catholic health care institutions may never condone or participate in [Death With Dignity] in any way.” Physicians are prohibited even from discussing options that exist in other institutions or making referrals.

To many non-Catholics, the most shocking statement in the ERDs is the suggested alternative to death with dignity: “Patients experiencing suffering that cannot be alleviated should be helped to appreciate the Christian understanding of redemptive suffering.” Redemptive suffering is a theological notion that derives from the crucifixion story—the idea that the blood sacrifice of a perfect being could redeem harm done. (Theories about how this works have varied over the course of Christian history.) By extension, suffering itself has redemptive value, which is why Mother Teresa’s order, for example, practiced self-flagellation and glorified suffering of the poor, ill and dying.

Given the clash between Washington State’s independence streak and the top-down approach of the Catholic bishops, Washington citizens are pushing back. After Catholic Peace Health got an exclusive contract near her home in the San Juan Islands, advocate Monica Harrington created a website, Catholicwatch.org to complement the efforts of the national Merger Watch. Merger Watch has been fighting the religious takeover of secular systems across the country for over a decade, and sometimes winning, but describes a recent surge that overwhelms their resources. The ACLU of Washington is ramping up and aggregating funds to fight for a state-wide solution, the first in the country, and is soliciting stories (confidentiality protected) from patients and providers anywhere in the U.S. who have experienced religious interference in medical decisions.

Even so, on May 20, the Seattle Times announced an affiliation agreement between the University of Washington system and Peace Health. Within Catholic-controlled hospitals, less than five percent of revenues come from the Catholic Church. Most are taxpayer funds in the form of Medicaid, Medicare and capital grants for public services—or insurance reimbursement. So, the thought of the bishops influencing a public owned and funded institution adds insult to injury. In response, Columnist Danny Westneat, of the Times, framed a pointed question. “Most of us aren’t Catholic, so I’m guessing we’d never go along with letting the creeds of that one faith run something as universal as education [even if ‘the Catholics have a good record of running quality schools’]. So why are we allowing it with health care?”

There are times when l ﬁnd myself wishing this were not an ex-Christian, but an ex- believer, site. There are good reasons for this. For one thing, shared experiences for the sake of comparison would be eye-opening amongst believers of many faiths. For another, the rationalizations and convoluted defenses of the faiths would be exposed; those ways in which people were conned into accepting them in the ﬁrst place. Then there is the emotional involvement, the dedication and utmost certainty each testiﬁer would have to offer as evidence why he or she stayed in the respective faith. And, why each believer in each respective faith thought he or she was in the one true one.

It would be enlightening to note that all religions begin with miracles, that all of them somehow manage to lose all the “evidence” for their claims even at their beginnings. And that the conﬂicts in interpretations of their beliefs at those beginnings are still unresolved to this day, as ﬁrmly as they are taught to be believed unquestionably by each religion and sect. Each believer would share the fact that none of the beliefs has evidence to back them, that their god or gods are invisible and untouchable. And, that the commandments from their god or gods are quite different for each of them, dependent on geographical location.

Every religion claims visions, miracles, and martyrs as reasons they are true. But, if believers are willing to die for each faith, and each division within their faith, that is no proof at all of any of them being true. Within every faith are heretics, and, since no one has any evidence of what is true or not in belief systems, everyone is a heretic. Visions and voices of an invisible god are no different from mind hallucinations, and yet all religions reference them as portals to spiritual knowledge.

Every religion begins as a cult.

All former faith adherents can tell you how they claimed to “know in my heart” as their primary reason for believing in their deity's existence. Note that, to members of various faiths, the real deity can be and is Krishna, Jesus, Zeus, Thor, Venus, etc., etc., throughout the centuries. Each religion claims that you need to believe in it completely to be good, and that without obeying its rules you will be immoral and condemned to a fate worse than death. Some will forbid pork and/or alcoholic beverages. All of them will tell you how to control your sex life, what and who to avoid like the plague, and urge you to suppress your curiosity about the world in general, since their scriptures disagree with it. Each of them creates their own “reality.”

Religions depend on the willingness of their members to lie to themselves; in fact, this is a necessity which they elevate to the status of virtue. And, they are well aware of how willing humans are to be deluded (and easily prone to self-delusion). They demand allegiance to them as the price to pay to be “forgiven“ by their deity, and them, for whatever your offences to the rules might be. And, the rules vary with the sect. (Of course, yours is the “true” one.) And, if you walk away from any of them without explanation, forget all that propaganda about being forgiven. There is nothing to be gained for them from a prodigal son, a moral person who can't accept the dogmas any more, who doesn't repent and bow down to ask for forgiveness. You are ostracized or even killed for not accepting the loving forgiveness of the god and his people. (And to think that you lived with so many strings attached to truss you.)

I wonder if every “ex” from religion has taken the same paths to reach reality, choosing morality over blind adherence to belief systems. It would be great to compare experiences, don't you think?

Recently I spoke to a friend of mine about a car of a one German producer which has been proclaimed by a study as the most reliable machine on the market. I’ve said to him that I would love to have that car. He looked at me with a smile and said: “No way. That car sucks. I know a guy who bought him and had a lot of problems with it”. He simply discarded data from analysis I showed to him and not even bothered to read it.

This example proves that testimonies are more accepted as evidence of truth than ‘boring’ and comprehensive analysis. That is a known fact which is used in marketing since humanity exists. Let us apply it to religion. When people hear of personal testimony of somebody’s conversion or miracle story they will easily believe it and accept it as a self-evident proof of God’s existence. On the other hand, when you show them medical data or present them with other more plausible scientific explanations they will in majority cases discard them, because “one of those miracles is surely a genuine one”.

Evolution made as we are – some of us are more prone to supernaturalism and some less. Paranormal perspective is mysterious and people are natural mystics.Something similar happened when I had a discussion with an acquaintance who has just graduated in psychology. The topic was psy abilities. While I said that evidence for psy is weak or non-existent, when proper experimental conditions are approved, he replied that “there are millions of testimonies and stories that can not be all false and that modern science can’t grasp or explain psy or other supernatural phenomenon”. Frankly, I was kind of disappointed. This guy studies psychology and before he tried to give some rational explanation he immediately skipped to supernaturalism explanations of strange phenomena. I wanted to say that maybe problem was with cognition processes of people who report anomalous experiences and explain them the best they can in frames of their beliefs and education, or even if we do not have a plausible rational explanation there is no need to skip to a fantastic one, but I gave up…

I don not want to be a hypocrite and say that I am immune to this kind of reasoning. Evolution made as we are – some of us are more prone to supernaturalism and some less. Paranormal perspective is mysterious and people are natural mystics. Probably that makes our lives more interesting or complicated, if you cross the line of exaggeration when magic and supernaturalism is involved. Culture and what we learn also plays important role in this kind of reasoning. That is way despite all the scientific progress majority of people will always be cautious when paranormal is served on the menu. Hopefully, that will change…

I became a saved Christian on January 2013 when I came across the concept of salvation on the internet. I decided to become a Christian because I was interested in following the commandments of God and I also liked the idea of Jesus caring about everyone. Two weeks after my conversion, I decided to read the bible and that is when I was so shocked at the cruelty of God. The Old testament is filled with violence, genocide, rape and threats against the Israelis. I was disgusted at the fact that God orders his people to invade other lands, kill all the people and take virgin women as wives.

There are also detailed instructions on how to beat your slaves. I could not believe that many Christians were defending this type of cruelty by claiming that the Canaanites were so evil or God has the right to kill anyone. I also realized that there were thousands of different doctrines regarding salvation and the afterlife. One doctrine is the once saved, always saved doctrine, another one is the lordship salvation and the third one is the salvation based on works. I was so confused as to which one is the right one. I was also confused and scared when I came across the doctrine of eternal torment. I did not know anything about hell when I initially became a saved believer. Needless to say, the concept of eternal torment caused anxiety, scrupulosity, fear and pessimism in me. I was very concerned that my family members were going to hell because they are not saved.

Many people say that they felt peace or hope when they came to know about Jesus. In my case, I think that converting to Christianity was the biggest mistake I have ever made in my 21 yrs on earth. As of May 2013, I am on a breaking point. I am not sure if I should completely fall away from Christianity or if I should continue in my faith. Christianity has been a source of fear for the past 4 months. I am not sure what to do.

What happens when religious institutions get to manage public funds, absorb secular hospitals, and put theology above medical science and individual patient conscience?

In 2010, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, an elderly woman was rushed to a local hospital called St. John. She had suffered a massive stroke and could no longer eat, drink or speak. Mercifully, she was one of the growing percent of Americans who have prepared for such an eventuality by writing an end of life directive. Hers said that said she did not want artificial hydration or nutrition if she wasn’t going to recover. Unfortunately, St. John is a facility where the directives of the Catholic bishops take precedence over the directives of individual patients, and one such directive orders hospitals to feed and hydrate end of life patients whether they want it or not.

Americans would do well to consider what happens when theology dictates health care.

In the official language of the Bishops, St. John is a “Catholic health care ministry,” their term for all Church affiliated hospitals and clinics. Catholic health care ministries are publically licensed institutions intended to serve the general public. They are highly subsidized by public dollars. To fund them the Church uses a variety of public revenue streams including Medicare, Medicaid, county appropriations, federal dollar allocated through the 1946 Hospital Survey and Construction Act, and tax exempt government bonds. As with any hospital, additional revenues come from insurance payments and investments, with the end result that the Catholic Church contributes less than five percent of the funds flowing through their hospitals and clinics. And yet the Bishops place theological restrictions on care for all patients and sometimes forbid providers from telling patients that treatment options exist elsewhere.

According to MergerWatch, Catholic control of health dollars and hospital facilities is on the rise across the U.S. In Washington State, for example, if all currently proposed mergers go through, almost half of hospital beds will lie in the hands of religious institutions by the end of 2013. Across the U.S., as Catholic systems such as Peace Health and Catholic Health Initiatives (CHI) quietly absorb secular hospitals, the Bishops are fighting in court for the religious equivalent of corporate personhood, claiming that the constitution gives them institutional conscience rights that trump patient choice. Meanwhile, Catholic owned pharmacies are suing for the right to deny services; and other Catholic owned business are demanding (and winning) religious exemptions from health insurance obligations.

In an effort to standardize the rules of Catholic institutions and the advice that priests give lay people, the Bishops have created what they call “Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care," called ERDs for short. When secular and religious institutions merge, the Bishops’ directives often restrict services in both. Patients may not realize that a once secular institution named Swedish or Highline is now subject to theology and could impose religious beliefs at odds with those of the patient. Following mergers, changes often are gradual, occurring slowly as staff leave and are replaced with believers, which makes the shift even harder for patients to detect. (Religious hospitals are exempt from non-discriminatory employment practices, somewhat remarkable given that so much of their funding is public.) Hospital administrators may state that they do not interfere in the doctor-patient relationship, while at the same time advertising for staff who are “deeply familiar” with the Bishops directives.

From a consumer standpoint, one problem with putting religion rather than science in charge of healthcare is that patients may not know they are being denied the full range of medically appropriate options. They may have no idea when institutional rules prevent doctors and nurses from honoring end-of-life wishes or discussing services that are available in secular settings, services like contraception, abortion, tubal ligation, vasectomy, fertility treatment, or death with dignity. For example, one woman tells of being diagnosed with an ectopic pregnancy at a religious hospital. She was advised that she needed to have her fallopian tube removed. Fortunately, she consulted her smart phone and realized that elsewhere she could simply obtain a medication to end her nonviable pregnancy. The medication is safer and leaves fertility intact, but the Catholic directives treat this as a direct abortion, while the surgery (which damages long term fertility) kills the fetus indirectly and so is acceptable.

Other countries where Catholic theology limits health options offer a dire warning of what might happen here if the Church had an equal hold on the levers of power. In El Salvador, Catholic theology was written into law in 1998, banning all abortions, even those intended to save the mother. As a consequence, a twenty two year old mother named Beatriz, who carries a nonviable fetus, lies in a hospital bed with her kidneys failing, hoping to be granted an exception by El Salvador’s Supreme Court. She has been waiting for over a month. In Catholic Ireland last October, a young dentist, Savita Halappanavar, died after being refused an abortion.

In an ironic twist, the extremity of Catholic directives leads many people to believe that they couldn’t possibly be implemented here. Consider the case of Beatriz. She is the mother of a young child. Her fetus is anencephalic, meaning it has no brain and never will be a person under any circumstance. (Note: Somewhere between sixty and eighty percent of human fertilized eggs self-destruct naturally before a full-term gestation, most before a woman knows she is pregnant, and many because they are defective.) In other words, the Salvadorian anti-abortion law risks the life of a young mother for an incomplete fetus that is a normal failed reproductive product rather than a potential child. For someone who thinks that morality is about wellbeing, this just sounds crazy. Of course this could never happen in the US, right? You may be astounded to learn that a Phoenix nun was excommunicated and her hospital was forcibly disaffiliated from the Catholic Church for allowing an abortion under similarly hopeless circumstances.

In Ireland, after Savita’s unnecessary death, thousands of men and women demanded medical services based on scientific evidence and individual conscience. Savita became the tragic face of an international movement. Even so, given the power of religious institutions and traditions, legal change in Ireland is likely to be minimal. The largely Catholic Irish Medical Association has declined to request abortion rights even in cases of incest, rape and nonviable fetal anomalies. Currently Irish law allows abortion only when a mother’s life is threatened, which is not good enough for a case like Savita’s. A leading obstetrician testified that Savita probably would have survived if she had gotten an abortion during the first three days of her hospital stay. But at that time, there was not a “real and substantial threat to her life.” By the time she met the legal criteria, it was too late.

Patients count on their doctors to know and suggest their best options to protect health and wellbeing. But as medical options increase, especially at the beginning and end of life, the range of services excluded for theological reasons also increases. Catholic “ethicists” devote millions of dollars to analyzing biomedical technologies in the pipeline and then advocating policy based on theological priorities. They block certain lines of research and prevent affiliated hospitals from participating in clinical studies that require participants to be on contraception, for example a cancer treatment that might cause fetal defects. Procedures opposed by the theologians are likely to be absent altogether from patient-doctor conversations.

Some patient advocates say that mandatory disclosure is part of the solution: Pharmacies that refuse to fill some prescriptions should post the fact that they are not full-service. Church-run abortion diversion centers known as crisis pregnancy centers, should post that they are not medical providers. Treatment consent forms should list the scientifically and medically accepted practices that a doctor or hospital refuses to provide so that patients know that these services are available elsewhere. Conversely, providers who sign onto a “Patients’ Bill of Rights” promising to base care only on medical science and patient conscience could get the equivalent of a Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval.

Catholic theology sees pain as having positive soul-purifying benefits.But disclosure alone won’t ensure state-of-the-art health care for many Americans, especially those living in small towns or rural settings. Sometimes one clinic or pharmacy serves a wide area, or all nearby services are managed by the same religious institution. In these cases, a woman with a painful and life-threatening ectopic pregnancy might not be able just to get in her car and drive to another clinic. Denial of service hits low income communities hardest because members often have less flexible time off work, transportation, and childcare. The right of religious doctors and institutions to deny services obstructs the right of patients to receive timely care that meets normal medical practice standards, which are designed to maximize wellbeing.

That is because Catholic theology isn’t necessarily about wellbeing; it is about submitting to the perceived will of God. Sometimes these two align, and sometimes they don’t. To serve God’s will, Catholic theologians attempt to derive moral principles that are about the inherent goodness or evil of certain beliefs and behaviors, regardless of their consequences. In this way of thinking, contraceptives or abortions should not be provided because they are “intrinsically evil,” even when contraception or abortion may save a woman's life.

To make matters worse, Catholic theology values passive submission to harm when it is believed to serve Catholic practice or faith. Saints are heralded for their commitment to theological principle even in the face of outrageous and foreseeable outcomes, including martyrdom. In fact, Catholic theology sees pain as having positive soul-purifying benefits. This is called redemptive suffering. In the ERDs, it is offered up as an alternative for patients whose unbearable pain leads them to seek death with dignity:

Dying patients who request euthanasia should receive loving care, psychological and spiritual support, and appropriate remedies for pain and other symptoms so that they can live with dignity until the time of natural death. . . . Patients experiencing suffering that cannot be alleviated should be helped to appreciate the Christian understanding of redemptive suffering.

Former nun Mary Johnson (author of An Unquenchable Thirst) spent twenty years working with Mother Teresa’s organization, the Missionaries of Charity, who have been accused of providing substandard treatment and pain management. She explains the sometimes abysmal conditions in their facilities thus:

Most people today would say that we help the poor by helping them out of poverty. That was never Mother Teresa’s intention. Mother Teresa often told us that as Missionaries of Charity we did not serve the poor to improve their lot, but because we were serving Jesus, who said that whenever service was rendered to one of the least, it was rendered to him. Jesus promised eternal life to those who fed the hungry and clothed the naked.

The point, in other words, is not necessarily to solve the problem but simply to perform service. Ultimately, it isn’t about real world outcomes for the person on the receiving end but about eternal outcomes for the person on the giving end. The difference is important. And although Johnson doesn’t mention it, the passage she quotes mentions the ill as well as the hungry and naked. The Jesus of the gospel writer promises eternal life to those who feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit prisoners, and care for the ill. When religion and healing are at odds, the way to get to heaven is to offer theologically principled care, even when more compassionate options are available.

This difference in objectives seems like reason enough to separate religion from medicine. Thanks to science, fertility treatment has come a long way from the mandrakes and dove blood prescribed in the Bible. Victims of sexual assault now have options other than being forced to bear rape babies (also the Biblical solution). As we face death, we have alternatives to convincing ourselves that suffering is redemptive. Do really we want theology at the helm of our biggest hospital and clinic systems?

If not, it may be time for ordinary men and women to speak our minds. In Washington State, where the battle over Catholic hospital mergers is heating up, the state constitution specifically prohibits the use of public funds to support religious institutions. Despite that prohibition, one district actually has a line-item in the property tax code to subsidize a Peace Health facility, leaving the local community with no secular alternative. With the Peace Health clinic newly open the local bishop has already tried to block the now Catholic system from providing lab work for Planned Parenthood, as was done in the past. Legal challenges may play out in court thanks to a patients’ rights campaign by the ACLU and grassroots groups, but the broader question is this:

When it comes to medical options, whose beliefs count, the Bishop’s or the patient’s? Who gets to say whether one woman is forced to incubate a pregnancy gone wrong or another is force fed at the end of life? Whose version of god gets to dictate how you live and how we die?

If you have had medical interference from a religious institution, please share your story with the ACLU of Washington, whether you live in Washington or not: http://www.aclu-wa.org/myhealthcare .

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